


Signs of Spring

by polynya



Series: The Greatest Family in Soul Society [1]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Announcements, Awkward Family Dinners, Byakuya is a moron, Cut him some slack tho my man is going thru a lot rn, F/M, Misunderstandings, Pregnancy, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:02:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24571990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polynya/pseuds/polynya
Summary: Rukia tries to share some happy news with her brother and, as usual, he (almost, but not quite) ruins it.
Relationships: Abarai Renji/Kuchiki Rukia
Series: The Greatest Family in Soul Society [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1975768
Comments: 18
Kudos: 107





	Signs of Spring

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the following Tumblr ask. Thanks for the prompt, Anon!:
> 
> _I love how you write Rukia/Renji/Byakuya becoming a family. I would love to hear your thoughts about R &R announcing their pregnancy to him and how B feels about it. Thanks for your thoughts!_
> 
> Thanks very much to Luna12 for the quick beta!

It was early spring.

It was not a good time of year for Byakuya. Once spring was in its full glory, once the plum trees and then the cherry trees began to bloom, he would be himself once more. But early spring was always difficult, and this one was proving to be a little more difficult than the last few.

By the calendar, the air should be warming, the first bulbs should be pushing their way above the ground, but winter had lingered this year. It was a cold blustery evening, spitting wet, slushy snow.

Byakuya’s sister had invited him over for dinner. He wasn’t entirely sure why.

Byakuya had seen his sister’s house once before, although it wasn’t, strictly speaking, her house at the time. It was newly purchased by his lieutenant, and he had been given a tour and an extensive sales pitch on its benefits and appropriateness as a home for the First Daughter of the Kuchiki. It was small, in his opinion, but charming, and in a desirable part of town. Rukia had seemed quite taken with it, and indeed, with its owner. So, Byakuya had agreed, and now it was _their_ house, the seat of Clan Abarai.

“This is the first time we’ve used this front room, actually,” Rukia mentioned off-handedly.

“Can you imagine us eatin’ in here by ourselves?” Renji joked mildly. “It’s a lot cozier under the kotatsu we got back next to the kitchen.”

Byakuya glanced around. The room was spare, but elegantly decorated. It was dominated by a long, low table of fine, dark wood, appropriate for entertaining, and polished to a mirror finish. (Who polished it? Abarai, hopefully). Displayed on one wall was a lovely red kimono, once worn by Rukia during a New Year’s dance performance, and once before by Hisana, for the same purpose. Despite its beauty, Byakuya kept his eyes, instead, on the painting that graced the opposite wall. It was an artistic style he wasn’t familiar with, very stylized, with bold strokes and an excess of color. It appeared to be an upper Rukongai street scene-- bustling with market stalls and musicians and children running about. What an odd subject for a painting. Byakuya could not make heads nor tails of it.

Rukia noticed his confusion. “Oh, our friend Chad, you know, Living Chad, is taking painting classes. He made that just for us, for a wedding present. Isn’t it beautiful?”

“It is certainly a discussion piece,” Byakuya nodded and turned back to poking at his dinner.

“Is the food okay?” Renji, who apparently had _cooked it_ , asked worriedly.

“What is it, again?” Byakuya asked, stirring the broth absently.

“It’s pork belly simmered in okara,” Renji explained patiently for what was probably the third time.

“Ah, right,” he agreed. Byakuya knew he wasn’t being a particularly good guest, but he felt deeply out of sorts. The fact was, he _missed_ Rukia. Both she and Abarai loyally attended Sunday dinner, which often featured other, further flung members of the clan. The Kuchiki siblings lunched together at least once a week and Rukia came over on Wednesday evenings to play shogi, but it _wasn’t the same._ Even though they had rarely crossed paths in the enormous Kuchiki Manor, Byakuya had liked knowing she was about, that she was curled up cozily in the library, or that he might bump into her near the pond, overfeeding the koi. He liked having dinner with her _every_ night in his own over-formal dining room and seeing her maid chase her down on Saturday mornings when she managed to escape her bedchambers without her hair properly arranged. He knew it was stupid to be cross when he was, in fact, with her at this very moment, but he found himself unable to shake his malaise.

Abruptly, Rukia pushed herself up from the table, looking pale. “I’ll be right back,” she managed, and disappeared from the room. This was not the first time she had excused herself, which Byakuya was beginning to find more than a little odd.

Renji leaned forward and spoke in a hushed voice. “I wanted to make you something nice, but Rukia said you get nice stuff all the time and she wanted you to see what it was usually like around here. Also, she really likes this pork stuff.”

“I… see,” Byakuya replied, taking a sip of the broth. In fact, the dish had excellent flavor, bursting with ginger and mustard. It was very plain looking, but it had a lovely warming effect, particularly in light of the foul weather outside. Not that he was about to tell his lieutenant that.

Byakuya pondered the phrase, “she wanted you to see what it was usually like around here.” He wondered if Rukia missed the food at home, if she tired of inferior cuts of meat, no matter how well they were seasoned.

As if on cue, Rukia slid back into the room, a wan smile on her face. Renji flashed her a concerned glance and she made a slight dismissive wave with her hand.

Maybe it wasn’t working out at all, it occurred to Byakuya suddenly. He knew that his lieutenant cared deeply for Rukia, but the man was plainspoken and his taste in everything except women and Gotei squads was questionable at best. Sometimes affection wasn’t sufficient to make a happy life. Did Rukia miss her old home? Was she unhappy? Had she invited Byakuya here to bear witness to the circumstances in which she now found herself?

Byakuya tried to observe his sister as Renji attempted to lighten the conversation with a rambling tale featuring the lieutenants of the Eighth and Tenth being sent on a mission together. Rukia seemed tired, but of course, trying to keep her division afloat must be very taxing. Was her smile pained? She kept glancing anxiously at Byakuya across the table. Was she trying to tell him something?

Renji had seemed especially solicitous this evening, repeatedly asking Rukia if she needed more tea and if she was warm enough. The man was nothing, if not observant, surely he had picked up on Rukia’s dissatisfaction. Finally, Renji left the room to clear their dishes, and Byakuya seized his chance.

“Sister,” he said, leaning forward. “I can tell you are out of sorts. You may be truthful with me, your brother. You invited me here to tell me something, yes?”

Rukia blinked at him. “Er. Yes, actually.”

“You should say it. I will understand, I promise.”

Rukia frowned. “I would rather wait for Renji to get back.”

“I know you care deeply for him and do not wish to hurt him, but your well-being is paramount, Rukia. You don’t even have any servants here. You are welcome home at any time. Marriages sometimes do not turn out as expected.”

Rukia was turning steadily redder as he talked. He wondered if she was about to start crying. He wasn’t sure he had ever seen Rukia cry, so he wasn’t sure what it looked like.

Suddenly, the shoji slid open again, and Renji returned, carrying a plate of cookies. “I know you don’t like sweet stuff,” he nattered blithely. “These are rosemary yuzu shortbread, real woodsy flavor. If you don’t like ‘em, don’t feel bad, I’m just gonna keep throwing stuff at you until we find something you like.” He put the cookies down on the table. “We do dessert in the Abarai clan. It’s the rule.” He glanced over at Rukia and did a double take at her deep frown.

“Abarai,” Rukia growled. “Tell him.”

“Tell him what?”

“The thing. The thing we invited him over to tell him.”

“I thought you wanted to tell him!”

“I changed my mind,” Rukia bit off through gritted teeth.

Byakuya squared his shoulders. Perhaps they had discussed it ahead of time. Perhaps the failure of their marriage was a forgone conclusion, and they had merely been nervous about how to inform him.

Renji’s eyes darted back and forth between his wife and his captain for a moment before he abruptly dipped down into a deep bow. “Esteemed Family Head!” he barked. “I am honored to inform you that Lady Abarai and I are expecting an Heir!” He straightened up again, a huge, toothy grin on his face, caught somewhere between terrified and hopeful.

Somehow, the words that had come out of his adjutant’s mouth weren’t quite penetrating Byakuya’s skull. Perhaps it was because he was shouting. Abarai shouted so much generally, that Byakuya’s brain was quite used to filtering these things out. He looked over to his sister, who had her arms crossed over her chest, and looked deeply, _deeply_ smug. Byakuya looked back at Renji again, whose smile seemed to be wobbling a bit around the edges.

“Sit down,” Rukia ordered her husband, who promptly sat. Rukia uncrossed her arms and leaned forward over the table. “I know it’s traditional to inform the clan head at 12 weeks. We’re only 6 weeks along, actually, so despite what this doofus just said, we’re not really telling you this as our family head, we’re telling you this as our brother. I know a lot can happen between 6 and 12 weeks, but you’re our family, and we share our joys _and_ our sorrows with you.” She sat back and took Renji’s hand. “And we are both… _very_ … happy about this. And we hope you are, too.” She paused. “I know this is a rough time of year for you. I hoped this would cheer you up. You dummy.”

Renji glanced at her, stricken.

Byakuya sat very still. There were a lot of words bouncing around in his head now. He opened his mouth to let some of them out. “An… Heir,” he echoed, and somehow, hearing the words in his own voice seemed to give them meaning. A child. A baby. Another Kuchiki, a small one. His _sister_ was having a _baby_ , which would make him-- “I will be an uncle,” he sputtered.

Rukia’s face had turned indulgent. “Did this possibility really never occur to you? Every single aunt has mentioned it about a thousand times since the wedding.”

Byakuya opened his mouth and then closed it again. He didn’t want to say that every aunt had said it a thousand times to him, too, shortly after his own wedding. That he learned to push it to the back of his head, that he had never allowed himself to entertain it as a possibility. That Hisana had wanted to give it a go anyway, and that there had been times when she had seemed joyful and shortly after, sorrowful, but hadn’t seen fit to share the reason why with him. That he had been the one who had to insist that they stop, because he couldn’t stand to risk even a minute of the time he had left with her. That he knew there would come a point in his life when he would be expected again to try for an Heir, and that he had never, ever, expected Rukia to take on any responsibility for that.

“You were just… _very efficient_ ,” he blustered, instead. “Six weeks!” They had barely been _married_ six weeks. He scowled after a bit of mental arithmetic. “Six weeks ago was my birthday.”

Rukia shrugged innocently. “It really could have been any time that week. You know us, Brother, we don’t do anything _halfway_.”

“The baby should come in late October,” Renji put in, desperate to divert the subject. “That should be nice!”

“I suppose this means I am not to tell anyone else for the next six weeks,” Byakuya grumbled. “That was not very considerate. It will be very difficult, Rukia.”

Rukia scoffed. “You love knowing things no one else knows. Who are you going to tell, anyway?”

“ _Everyone_. It is not every day that one becomes an uncle, you know.” Byakuya glanced over at his lieutenant, who was beginning to look a bit _misty_ , and realized that maybe all this bluster wasn’t _strictly_ necessary. “All is… looking well, though?” he asked more gently. “Please tell me you have seen a medical professional of some sort.”

“I have an excellent midwife, recommended by Cousin Izanami,” Rukia reassured him. “And I have Hanatarou clucking over me as well. Aside from a… lot… of morning sickness--”

“More like any-time-of-day-sickness,” Renji mumbled under his breath.

“--it’s going very well,” Rukia ignored her husband. “And before you even ask, Renji has been taking _extra_ good care of me.” She glared pointedly at her brother.

“You will take leave? Starting shortly?”

“Starting in October, probably,” Rukia corrected him. “There’s too much to do. But I’m already off combat duty, I told Nanao at the start of the year we were trying.”

Rukia seemed so organized. She appeared to have all this planned out. He never would have expected it. “You should let me send over a few servants,” Byakuya blurted out.

“We’re doing fine,” Rukia reassured him. “Plenty of people have babies without having servants.”

“Well, what can I do, then?” Byakuya huffed. “You must allow me to fuss over you in some manner.”

“Be excited with us,” Rukia shrugged. “Eat a cookie.” Renji flashed him yet another hopeful smile. “And tell this man he did a good job, for once.”

“On the dessert or on the child?” Byakuya asked coolly, selecting a shortbread.

“Anything,” Rukia replied. “Your choice.”

“Stop it,” Renji hissed to Rukia.

“He said something horrifically stupid earlier, take your compliment and like it,” Rukia hissed back.

Byakuya chewed his biscuit thoughtfully and pretended not to hear them. The flavor was very interesting, but if he told Abarai he liked it, he might not get further experiments. “Good job on making my sister very happy, Abarai,” he decided. “Keep it up. Or else.”

Renji blinked at him for a moment and then came back with “My pleasure, sir. And will do.”

Byakuya took a deep breath and allowed himself to savor this moment of happiness, as Senbonzakura often encouraged him to do. “Would you like some suggestions of eminent members of the family you could name the child after?” he offered grandly.

“No,” Rukia replied.

“Have you begun interviewing governesses?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Considered decor for the nursery?”

“ _That_ , I have done and there is no room for Wakame Ambassador, sorry, you’re too late.”

Renji, looking deeply tired, began dunking his cookie in his tea.

“There is always room for Wakame Ambassador,” Byakuya noted in what he hoped was a mysterious and cryptic tone, while subtly helping himself to a second cookie.

Perhaps springtime was not so far away, after all.


End file.
